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Burglar alarms make no sense; should be reworked


Snaiper

Suggestion Poll  

41 members have voted

  1. 1. Which types of alarms should be present?

    • Only motion-based alarms should be present.
      1
    • Only breach-based alarms should be present.
      11
    • Both motion-based and breach-based burglar alarms should be present.
      29
  2. 2. Should zombies be able to activate alarms upon breaching a window/door or entering a motion-sensor-protected area?

    • Yes, zombies should be able to.
      41
    • No, zombies should not be able to.
      0
  3. 3. Should the player be able to detect if a building has a burglar alarm?

    • Yes, always.
      6
    • Yes, but only in some cases.
      30
    • No, never.
      5


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In Survival house alarms are so often, too often I think, or maybe I'm just unlucky; and all of that would be fine if they worked as they are supposed to and as most of them do IRL. I think these are the two biggest issues:

  1. Alarms are not triggered by zombies, only by the player.
  2. Security/alarms are active even when there are windows and/or doors open or broken (all are motion-based).

 

Motion-sensor based alarms are generally not used in regular houses, only on per-room basis in places where something very valuable is stored. Most alarms are based on completing a circuit, so if a window or a door opens it breaks it and triggers the loud alarm. There are those which also detect a window breaking, not just opening, but there are also those that only detect opening/closing.

 

Now, of course you don't have to go into the great struggle and detail of making sure all types of alarms exist and then deciding in which types of areas each can be, however, I think that the current one-for-all solution is not the best, it's mostly annoying because it defies common sense and reality, primarily due to 1.

 

There is currently no way for the player to know if a house has an alarm, we can't go around the house and check to see if there is something potentially resembling a security system inside or outside + zombies being inside and/or windows or doors being broken or not also means nothing. This means it's 100% random whether you hit an alarm or not, and something random that can't be preemptively accounted for that changes gameplay in a significant way (and poses significant risk for failure) is 100% BAD, BAD, BAD.

 

My suggestion is that you firstly decide what kind of alarms you want to have (so, that's 2.). For that my suggestion is detecting opening a door or a window and/or breaking it too, and that's what would trigger an alarm. Then just make zombies able to activate alarms as well OR make sure that alarms are disabled where zombies have broken windows/doors or places in which zombies are (in case you don't want zombies causing random alarms). All in all, this way player won't feel cheated and won't feel as annoyed by the burglar alarms which are quite often.

 

This is all just ideas, but if I had to choose one, here's what I would do (TL;DR):
Having 2 main types of alarms: Motion-based for high-profile places and breach/opening-based (e.g. opening or breaking a window would trigger it, but just being inside or outside wouldn't).
The first one couldn't be activated by the player if there are already zombies inside the area.

The second one could have zombies inside the area, but it couldn't be activated if the player walks through an open door or window.
Zombies triggering or not is either way, I can see both arguments for and against that (annoyance that can't be accounted for VS adds an unexpected variable to make gameplay more intense/complex)

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Motion sensor alarms are the default in Canada, even in the early 90s, when security systems started to become more popular / affordable. It's much easier to install one sensor that covers an entire room, than individual sensors on every point of entry. Only one wire needs to be concealed.

 

Zombies not triggering alarms should otherwise be regarded as a bug that will be fixed at some point.

 

You can  control the frequency of alarms in Sandbox. The default is something like 10% of buildings are alarmed.

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24 minutes ago, Butter Bot said:

Motion sensor alarms are the default in Canada, even in the early 90s, when security systems started to become more popular / affordable. It's much easier to install one sensor that covers an entire room, than individual sensors on every point of entry. Only one wire needs to be concealed.

 

Well were they default in America?

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In the late 90's, you could buy relatively inexpensive kits that were 'break the wire' type sensors. I put them on bedroom/entry doors, and you could easily adapt them to windows. They aren't exactly invisible, but they aren't huge. Maybe an inch tall with a narrow width. I'd be happy to take a picture of it. Now, I'm not going to say they were common here, but you certainly could find a house with them installed. But, realism aside for the moment - what other option do you think fits better? 

 

https://www.amazon.com/As-Seen-TV-Instantly-Windows/dp/B0006B7M3Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492062657&sr=8-1&keywords=first+alert+door+alarm

 

First available 2001 - and that is mass marketed "as seen on tv"

Edited by makkenhoff
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/12/2017 at 11:56 AM, Butter Bot said:

American companies like ADT are the norm.

 

Now that you mention them, and the OP was mentioning that there should be a way to tell which place has alarms and which one hasn't, how about them having alarm signs outside?

 

1096645153_b481655cdd_z.jpg?zz=1

 

I'm pretty sure we've seen these around all of the time.

 

Of course, not ALL the place would have them, but SOME would, and it would at least give us the choice of breaking or not into places we KNOW have the alarm.

 

These would spawn randomly outside the buildings (either as garden signs or wall stickers) of, let's say, 4 out of every 10 places with alarm. And that could give us an idea of what's there.

 

 

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I always thought that'd be cool. You should also be able to find the alarms and try to take them, with a high chance of breaking without electrical skill, like with other things. I'd be the guy though that even if I don't have one, I'd just grab a sign here or there and the next thing you know I have 30 in my front yard8-)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/21/2017 at 10:24 PM, Blake81 said:

Err.... Honestly, I don't see why would anyone want to take the alarms. Placing them on your base would be like giving the Zeds a free reinforcements ticket....

it could be used to draw noise somewhere else or maybe towards an enemy. swarm someones base with them or maybe use it to draw a horde away. its uses are for more than just home protection.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I would think motion activated alarms aren't very common (for homes at least) because so many people have pets or don't want to set it off themselves in middle of the night.

 

Most should also fail within a few days, at most, after the power goes out as their battery backups deplete.

Edited by BoogieMan
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On 5/4/2017 at 11:08 PM, King jjwpenguin said:

it could be used to draw noise somewhere else or maybe towards an enemy. swarm someones base with them or maybe use it to draw a horde away. its uses are for more than just home protection.

 

The ones I am familiar with are typically hard wired into the house. It would be much easier to simply use smoke detectors or alarm clocks with a battery backups for such a purpose.

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